Online guide for parents to control content kids consume to be announced
Tech-shy parents in Greece will soon be able to access a comprehensive and easy guide on how to monitor and control the content their children are exposed to online.
Developed by the Ministry of Digital Governance, the online guide is part of a government bid to address rising juvenile delinquency and crime in the wake of a string of disturbing cases of violence and harassment involving minors in recent months – much of it captured on camera and disseminated online.
Speaking to state broadcaster ERT on Tuesday, Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou, explained that the platform comprises a list of digital tools and apps for installing parental control filters on the mobile devices used by youngsters, as well as information on what they need to be looking out for. It will also advise parents to keep track of how much time their children spend online.
Papastergiou said the online guide is ready to go and will be officially announced by the prime minister soon.
“We want to simplify the parental control instructions that come on every mobile device so that every parent who wishes to apply them can do so. This is to ensure that we can intervene for safety reasons and locate our child, and that they can use their phone as a tool, because that’s what it should be,” Papastergiou pointed out.
The aim is for parents to be able to intervene after agreeing with their child on the terms under which they are allowed to use mobile devices. These interventions include blocking inappropriate websites and videos, as well as flagging keywords.
Papastergiou noted that more widespread usage of parental controls also puts pressure on big platforms to better monitor their content.
“We want to introduce a mentality that, yes, children use mobile phones, and a mobile phone is a tool, a tool of communication and, to a certain degree, information, used for looking things up, but it needs to be used in moderation,” he said.
